ilvery sound that made her heart ache.

"I wish I could help you, Highness," said the Countess. "I should like
to see you happy. But happiness does not come of itself. We must fight
for it."

"Fight? What chance have I to fight?" Hedwig asked scornfully.

"One thing, of course, I could do," pursued the Countess. "On those days
when you wish to have tea with--His Royal Highness, I could arrange,
perhaps, to let you know if any member of the family intended going to
his apartments."

It was a moment before Hedwig comprehended. Then she turned to her
haughtily. "When I wish to have tea with my cousin," she said coldly, "I
shall do it openly, Countess."

She left the balcony abruptly, abandoning the Countess to solitary fury,
the greater because triumph had seemed so near. Alone, she went red
and white, bit her lips, behaved according to all the time-honored
traditions. And even swore--in a polite, lady-in-waiting fashion, to be
sure--to get even.

Royalties, as she knew well, were difficult to manage. They would go
along perfectly well, and act like human beings, and rage and fuss and
grieve, and even weep. And then, quite unexpectedly, the royal streak
would show. But royalties in love were rather rare in her experience.
Love was, generally speaking, not a royal attribute. Apparently it
required a new set of rules.

Altogether, the Countess Loschek worked herself to quite as great a fury
as if her motives had been purely altruistic, and not both selfish and
wicked.

That night, while the Prince Ferdinand William Otto hugged the
woolen dog in his sleep; while the Duchess Hilda, in front of her
dressing-table, was having her hair brushed; while Nikky roamed the
streets and saw nothing but the vision of a girl on a balcony, a girl
who was lost to him, although she had never been anything else, Hedwig
on her knees at the prie-dieu in her dressing-room followed the example
of the Chancellor, who, too, had felt himself in a tight corner, as
one may say, and was growing tired of putting his trust in princes. So
Hedwig prayed for many things: for the softening of hard hearts;
for Nikky's love; and, perhaps a trifle tardily, for the welfare
and recovery of her grandfather, the King. But mostly she prayed for
happiness, for a bit of light and warmth in her gray days--to be allowed
to live and love.

CHAPTER. XI. RATHER A WILD NIGHT

Things were going very wrong for Nikky Larisch.

Not handsome, in any exact s